


Save your body, save your mind

by Melitot



Category: Jurassic Park (1993), Jurassic Park (Movies)
Genre: Alan's patience, Angst, Children, Developing Friendships, Dinosaurs, F/M, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Ian being Ian, Kind of a progressing-flashfics series?, Lovers to Friends, Nightmares, Past Relationship(s), Survival, T-Rexes, Trauma, Velociraptors, Yuletide 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 16:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13034931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melitot/pseuds/Melitot
Summary: Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm from Isla Nublar to Site B and beyond - together, then apart, then together again. Because life finds a way (to torment you).





	Save your body, save your mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [28ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/gifts).



> Dear 28ghosts, Happy Yuletide!  
> This was my first _Jurassic Park_ fanfic ever (strange, after a lifetime of loving the franchise). At the beginning I struggled a bit, but rewatching the movies gave me a direction, which translated into a series of 'impressions' or flashfics. I know this is a strange story format, but I hope you'll like it nonetheless!  
>  I went with the friendship angle for the three of them, in the end. I wasn't confident enough to transform the bond into a full-blown OT3; maybe someday ;-)  
> I kinda put a ship back together, though... sorry, Mark.
> 
>  
> 
> Tiny disclaimer: English is not my mothertongue and, while I proofread this at the best of my ability, a few mistakes will surely have slipped by. Sorry about that! Feel free to point them out.
> 
>  
> 
> Wish you Happy Holidays!

 

I

 

It's a wake-up call. Oh, a great wake-up call.

The cherished indolence that accompanied him since the days of sand castles ends like this: with a snap of teeth. A roar, and a flight, and a tourniquet among the wet fagots of a roof.

Done is the eternal college student life. Done the successful debates, the rock star shows. Done the carefree dry Martinis, done the club nights, the playful seduction, the flitting from marriage to marriage; from son to daughter. Done his credibility.

Done the tenure too, eventually.

Ian Malcolm looked Death in the eye – yellow, huge – and his life went off the rails.

The butterfly that brought him this cyclone should have died caterpillar.

 

The nightmares come and go with a rainstorm's irregularity. When Ian believes he's finally got over Isla Nublar's grotesque hell, there come back those rasping huffs in the dark, the fetid breath, the eyes spying from the shadows. And the ticking of those damned claws...

A thud.

Teeth gleaming, defeaning roars.

When he realizes he cannot keep a glass on his nightstand anymore for fear of seeing the water tremble, he knows he's got a problem.

The ironic side of his personality finds it amusing. Unpacking _this_ chaos into comprehensible chapters for the masses will be a challenge. It's got all the signs of a proper best-seller.

The animal side of his brain, however, is pissing itself at the thought that those things could be still roaming around free.

Ian is very annoyed by this.

 

 

II

 

They drift apart like this, gently slipping away.

When they get back to the escavation site, Alan throws himself into work with the fervour of religious paroxysm, looking for oblivion in everyday's routine. Ellie just wants to escape.

No matter how much they pretend, Jurassic Park changed everything: their existences, their desires; the eyes with which they see the world. Even the job that was their life isn't the same anymore. Alan fools himself, but she sees how his hands shake when they unearth a new skeleton. He stands still next to the site and stares at the predator's teeth, breathing heavily. Hammond has robbed him of his passion.

Every mention is a shudder. Every find, a silent panic attack. In the middle of the desert, night holds its breath, listening to moving shadows and a silence that speaks of ambush rather than peace.

What can they do? They understand that their relationship is changing, and Ellie is convinced that talking about what happened would do good to them both. But discussing it privately only feeds the nightmares, while the mass media are out of reach because of a non-disclosure agreement tied to a tree-years sponsorship for their research.

Little by little, they stop talking about it.

Alan buries himself in work. Ellie just want to flee.

It was inevitable that, sooner or later, she would succeed.

 

 

III

 

They say that surviving against impossible odds changes your perspective on the world and yourself. They say it makes a god out of you.

Whoever created this pearl of folk wisdom, they got the first two right; but the second? Unless they meant a god of rage.

Ian survived and is very, very pissed off. Flattered he made it out alive, yes, but pissed off to death. He sees the irony but he's too mad to wave it away with a laugh, as he once would have.

He went to the Tropics for a luxury weekend, paid by a corporation that vomited billions by the hour, and he found himself running, fighting, shooting and praying non-stop for his life. He risked getting swallowed whole, bled to death, disenboweled and every variation on the theme.

He saw people die. And when he denounced what had happened, no one wanted to believe him. Not his fiancée, not his colleagues, not his parents – sometimes he even doubts his children.

As if this weren't enough, those sons of a bitch from InGen used his non-disclosure agreement to get him in trouble, causing the building of his reputation to fall brick by brick.

And then there are the nightmares. The memories.

Same thing, after all.

Thus, after destroying a piece of furniture or two with his old baseball bat, Ian finds himself before a gim's punching ball.

He's tired of being pointed at like the token mad academic on the market. He's tired of feeling eyes following him, rustles tracking him, shadows gliding just outside his field of vision, preparing to leap...

But, above all, he's tired of feeling defenceless.

 

 

IV

 

One thing he has always loved to say is "when no solution exists, create it yourself". It's the road he travelled to his most daring theories on chaos; and it's how he, more prosaically, finds a way to combine his post-traumatic stress with the necessity of evolution.

He loses 22 pounds in two months, regains 11 of muscle. He's not a man of brawny constitution nor he will ever be, but he doesn't give up.

Off with the sedentary animal fat. Off with weakness and short breath. He starts running every morning (avoiding wooded areas). He does weightlifting. He signs up for survival classes. He obtains a gun licence, trains at the nearest firing range whenever he can. He doesn't stop until he feels he can survive another emergency situation like Jurassic Park – even praying never to relive it again.

At a certain stage of the journey, his fury transforms into manageable anger. And Ian is calmer.

Calm enough to write a book, publish it, promote it and defend himself, armed with lawyers to the teeth, from all legal actions, participating in as many debates offered by television as he can. It's during one of those events that he meets Sarah.

 

 

V

 

When the uproar dies down, he realizes that he hasn't thought of Isla Nublar's other unlucky visitors in a long time. Where are they? What are they doing? Do they share his state of mind? Have they seen him on tv?

He hasn't seen them, not even on the papers. Barely heard their names spoken.

He's starting to believe they were victims of the non-disclosure agreement, too. And this is a bad thing. A very bad thing.

He looks for them. Mentions their names. Knocks on the right doors with a hawker's insistence, and finally succeeds. In hindsight, it will be the best decision he's made in the last years; Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler were possessed of an equilibrium difficult to explain already back at Jurassic Park.

His one-visit therapist would be proud: Ian has found a positive (if not exactly willing) influence.

He hadn't had any real friends since his high school days. To be honest, maybe he'd never had them – and it worked swimmingly. Ian Malcolm has (mediocre) colleagues, students, fans, paparazzi, parents, children, (ex)wives and enough enemies, both academic and not; but friends? All individuals at the top of the food chain are wonderfully, extraordinarily alone.

But... there is always a "but". As he loves saying, life knows how to take you by surprise. And damn if it managed to do so.

 

 

VI

 

"You left her. I can't believe it."

" _We_ left each other, Malcolm. We took different paths."

"You let her _leave_. The level of stupidity required is unknown even to the theorists of Hedonism. And trust me, I know many of them."

Grant lays his pen on the account he's filling with scribbles. It's unbelievable how a desk can make people look smaller.

"I don't think you're in a position to judge, Mister Ten Ex-wives."

"Seven" Ian clarifies, lifting a warning finger. "Seven, professor."

"I bet you're already working on the eighth."

"That is non influential."

"Oh well." Grant retrieves his pen. "I recall that you tried to hit on Ellie, too."

"Good grief, it was a quip. A joke. You know, professor Grant, I think this possessiveness of yours might have been a problem."

The scrawls start walking again, scattering on the pages like ants among sticks. Grant scores words off with mean lines. Gauging by the energy he's putting into marring the paper and the general air of academic decrepitude, Ian deduces that the break up has been less harmonious than what the second-rate tabloids chirped. Should he hazard a guess, he'd bet on the matter of children. He still remembers Ellie's conversations – but doesn't say so.

He's not that stupid.

"I can't believe it."

This time, Grant's sigh is half-growl.

"There is no need for you to believe it, Malcolm. You just need to accept it."

 

 

VII

 

Sometimes her phone rings, and it's him. They remained friends: part of Ellie is happy of that, another part disappointed. She'd hoped Alan would not give up so easily. Up until the end, she hoped he would fight to keep her by his side.

But it's not his fault, all things considered. It's no one's fault. Not even she knows what she really wants. The old dreams and purposes seemed so rose-coloured after the Jurassic Park; she wanted to get away from everything that echoed them, to change her life and forget.

Alan's voice always recalibrates her, though.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Ellie."

"Hi, how are you?"

"A bit worn. You'll never guess who entered my office today."

Dinosaur-themed conversations should be taboo per silent agreement – but how can it be done, really, when they're both damned paleonthologists?

And furthermore, it's impossibile to keep the lid on Ian Malcolm.

"He gave me his book, you know? His vulgar, flashy book. With _dedication_."

After months, Ellie bursts into heartfelt laughter.

 

 

VIII

 

A Site B. There is a fucking Site B.

The things are still alive. Not the same ones – others, on an even bigger island and in _higher numbers_. He'd seen straight away that Hammond was a wretched bastard. (No one had wanted to believe him though, as always.)

But that's not all: it so happens that his current fiancée, the most serious of his entire life, has decided to do a scientific study for the conservation of the island at hand, accompanied by an assistant and a non-armoured camper van.

Obviously, the situation could not forget a participation ticket for Ian Malcolm, oh no. This time however he's prepared (for a rescue mission).

Predictably, when he receives news of the expedition Sarah is already unreachable. Just as predictable, Isla Sorna ends in disaster as well, thanks to InGen and people's stupidity.

Damnit. Ian loved the tropics, reptiles and package tours. Now he has an aversion to all three, to humid heat, to geneticists and to the luscious vegetation suitable for an equatorial safari. Even just the panels of the Natural Sciences' Museum cause him palpitations.

What in the hell drove him to accept Hammond's lackeys' proposition in '92, he doesn't know yet – and probably never will. The program promised an exceptional vacation, true... but he has never been an adventurous man if not in mind and on paper.

Curiosity? Antagonism? Boredom? All three?

What is certain is that the results will now stay with him for life, under the form of stress treatment, nervous tics... oh, and let's not forget an extra daily snifter.

 

 

IX

 

Four years to forget the Jurassic Park. One instant to know it's impossible.

Ellie stares at the screen with dismay, gripping the armrests of her living room's chair. She cannot move a muscle. She can only witness the disaster.

She's so distraught that she doesn't hear the telephone until it stops ringing. At the second call, she slaps her hand on the coffe table, groping for the receiver.

She answers with a gasp.

"Ellie? Ellie, can you hear me?"

"...Alan?"

"Are you watching it, too?»

"Yes", she breathes.

"My God."

"That's San Diego, Alan. San Diego."

"And that's a fucking tyrannosaurus."

They broke up four months ago. Now it's almost as if it never happened. In terror, his tone anchors her to reason and survival instinct.

"They're... on the mainland."

Ellie swallows with difficulty. On the television screen, the T-Rex charges a bus and sends it off the road, throwing an entire four-lanes Avenue into a panic.

"They're on the _mainland_."

What could have happened? Who brought them here? Who's the bastard that dared disturb Isla Nublar after Ian's countless statements...?

"Ellie." Alan's voice is serious. She remembers his face near the control room's door, and a velociraptor on the other side of the glass. "Call that friend of yours, the one who works for the FBI. Tell him they need to send someone. They must stop it. And find out if there are more."

But the answer dies in her throat. Ther is a car racing towards San Diego's harbour, filmed by a helicopter's cameras. And upon that flaming red bullet there's a face she would recognize among thousands, even blurred.

"Oh my God" she exclaims, low. "That's Ian."

And he's got a baby tyrannosaurus on his backseat.

 

 

X

 

A trill in the night. Alan sits up, awake in a flash.

He hesitates, scanning dark corners, straining to hear. Then he snaps out of it and slaps the bedside lamp on, eyes still fixed on the far side of the room. But he's alone. The door's locked. The window barred. Nothing moving beyond it, no breathing, no ticking of claws.

And the damn phone is ringing.

He picks it up, suddenly dazed.

"What...?"

"Alan. Alan?"

"Who–"

"It's me."

" _Malcolm_?" He lets himself fall back on the pillow. "The heck, do you know what time is it?"

"Uh... oh. Sorry."

"How did you get this number?"

"It was on your business card. The one in your planner."

"Ah. The one I don't give anyone anymore. You just happened to take that card."

"Yeah, what a lucky find, huh?"

It's too late for this. Or too early. Alan pinches the bridge of his nose, eyelids sliding shut.

"Why the hell did you call me at 3 am, Malcolm? I have classes to teach in five hours."

Only now he realizes that he's not the only one still gasping for breath. Malcolm's voice is wavering.

"...What happened?"

A pause. Then: "Do you ever dream of them?"

No need to ask what he's talking about. Two minutes ago, Alan woke up sure he'd heard a velociraptor's cry.

Almost five years, and they're still hot on his trail.

 

 

XI

 

"My daughter was on that island, too."

Somehow they ended up here, in the small living room where Ian Malcolm is slowly crumbling to pieces, supine on the sofa. It was Ellie's idea.

Alan is alreadu regretting it.

"Not just my fiancée. My daughter, too."

Kelly is a smart girl. They've met her a couple of times; she's cautious and balanced – usually. Alan feels a stab of anxiety.

"But Ian, how did she manage to come?" Ellie asks. "You had planned to leave only after talking with Hammond, and she lives with her mother..."

The man on the sofa is as different from the _chaostician_ they met in '92 as night is from day: exhausted, pale and bruised, he's got four parallel scratches on his right arm and is even more sullen than the first time he visited Alan at his university office.

The only thing that didn't go away is the sarcasm.

"She hid inside the camper van. We pinched her while she was preparing a beach barbeque."

Oh, God.

"Did she see...?"

"Oh, a great many things. Way more than this town" Ian laughs, harsh. "Hammond always offered the best travels. I just thank heaven that she was in the High Hide when mommy and daddy arrived."

Alan and Ellie share a look.

"You mean...?"

"Right, you saw only daddy. Mommy was much bigger – and much angrier."

He tells them everything, following a decently-logic order. And the horror grows.

Alan already knows what is waiting for him in sleep.

Ellie shakes her head, running a hand over her mouth. They each open a can of beer, while Ian drinks straight from a bottle of red.

"What will you do, now?"

He lowers the bottle and stares into space.

"Besides avoiding the tropics for the rest of my life and keep my family well away from there?" He shrugs. "I'll write another book."

"How about a military therapist?" Alan suggests, rubbing his forehead.

"Better a military survival instructor."

"I don't think you need one, all things considered."

Ellie and Ian look at him at the same time. Then, unexpectedly, they share a half-laugh.

They're survivors. And they will keep on surviving.

 

 

 

XII

Inside Ian's oneiric world, tyrannosauruses erupt from the forest to run through San Diego's streets. In Alan's, the brachiosaurus' peaceful wake transforms into a tragic flight of gallimimus, and into the discharge of a paddock's fence.

Ellie's nightmares taste of rain and metal – the metal of the power shed among the jungle foliage, with all its stairs, its dark corridors. The persistent noise is a dripping of humidity and the echo of Muldoon's voice ("Run. Toward the shed. I got her. Run!")... and then, that sound of breathing.

Low, raspy. It hisses through rows of sharp teeth.

In the dreams it's always _her_ shadow giving chase. When Ellie sees her, _her_ eye looks back at her through the fence, clever. _You know that I know_ , it says. _And you won't escape me. It's just the two of us, only us, little human._

But Ellie escaped. She left Isla Nublar alive, the Big One dead.

Not in her subconscious, it seems. In those woods, the queen raptor keeps on hunting her.

It's strange never to see the dangers shared with the others at the end knock at sleep's door. But, after all, being alone is deeply linked to visceral fear. Pack mentality, Alan would say. In big numbers, even a great dangers appears smaller.

When Mark is out of town (sometimes, even when he's not), Ellie thinks she hears velociraptors patrol the shadows beyone the shrubs. Not even the tranquil suburns can silence the instincts that the island woke in her.

 

 

XIII

 

Malcolm isn't the only one who was left traumatized by prehistoric experiences, though he might have an edge after Isla Sorna. The last time Alan spoke with Tim and Lex, the children were seeing a therapist specialized in post-traumatic stress, particularly in relation to soldiers back from war zones. Hammond has retired from public life. And Ellie... well, the memory of their last nights together is scattered with brusque awakenings, shouts, screams, the reflections of bloody nightmares in her eyes.

Sometimes he wonders if the Park was the final blow to their relationship. They say that events such as these create indissoluble bonds among the survivors; to be frank, he believes they're just as much capable of severing them. The horror of Isla Nublar is so tightly interwoven with his their last months as a couple to seem the main culprit.

Maybe – probably – it wasn't, but...

Thunder booms outside his office. The sky framed by the window is lead grey and, at the first gust of rain, Alan feels a weight settle in his stomach.

Water drums upon a car roof. Breakdown, darkness, mud. Hills plunged into the night...

Something moving inside the leafage.

The dismembered thigh of a goat. A big, yellow eye staring at you, and electrical wires snapping, clawed paws climbing over the perimeter fence, a roar sixty-millions-years old–the image of unknown camping vans being pushed off a cliff–

Knock knock!

Alan flinches, dropping his planner and phone. Heart in his throat, he looks at his office's door. The handle quakes – starts to move–

_"The velociraptors!"_

He grips his desk, ready to jump to his feet – he'll leap out of the window, the glass is thin–

"Professor? Professor Grant?"

The door opens and Grace Wells, his best student, enters, arms loaded with spiral-bound files. Must be the reports required of the graduate students' class.

"Professor? Are you feeling well?"

Alan realizes he's drenched with sweat. His breath is laboured and his hands are trembling.

He answers with a generic platitude and accepts the reports, almost throwing her out. He'll have to apologize later.

For now, he abandons the files and grabs the phone receiver.

 

 

XIV

 

When the helicopter lands in Washington, DC, an ambulance and a black SUV are waiting for them. Alan suspects they will need to lawyer away hours to explain what happened to Billy and him, and he wouldn't want to be in the Kirbys' shoes, lost son or not.

The hold door opens. While they're stepping down, the Suv doors open as well.

And suddenly Ellie and Malcolm are crossing the tarmac strip.

"Alan! Oh my God, Alan! Are you hurt?" Ellie runs the rest of the way and hugs him. "What happened? When I called you back–"

"It's... a long story."

And it's over, if nothing else. Over for good. He won't set foot on those islands ever again, nor in a 200 miles radius from them.

Malcolm reaches them, hands in the pockets of his black trousers, black humour on his face.

"Fell for it too, huh?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Still hung up on formalities, I see. You know we're even now, do you, with this little travel of yours?"

"He called soon after we stopped talking" Ellie explains. "By chance. When I was still shocked and was trying to plan for a rescue mission with Mark's contacts... oh Alan, I couldn't leave him in the dark. Ian knows the island. He could help, and wanted to."

Alan tries not to seem surprised. He shouldn't be, to be fair.

"Besides, I felt he deserved to know."

Malcolm lifts two fingers. "Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna. We're the only ones to have visited both, professor."

That's right. Hammond brought them together, and his dinosaurs keep on binding them to each other.

Alan offers a tired smile.

«It's a honor I would have gladly done without." Two nurses walk up to him and try to have him lie down on a stretcher. "No no no, I'm fine, I'm fine. Really."

"Alan, you should let them take a look at you" Ellie tries.

"Anyway" Ian continues, "I'd told you: keep away from that place. This is what happens when people don't listen to me."

Alan rolls his eyes, looking up at the sky – blue, starry, and pterosactyl-less. They slowly make their way towards the SUV.

"What do you think I was trying to do? I'm interested in fossilized dinosaurs, not live ones."

"And yet, here you are. After I had told you about Site B in all its bloody details."

Far to their left, the Kirbys are boarding the ambulance. Eric seems to feel Alan's stare, because he turns and lifts an arm to wave him goodbye. Alan feels his mouth twitch.

"You know, _Malcolm_. Eric wasn't so wrong, after all: you are kind of preachy, not to mention full of yourself."

"Eric who?"

"The young Kirby. The one I was roped into this mess to save."

Ian frowns, car door open. "That brat?"

"What? Didn't you love children?" Alan asks, smiling wide.

"Not self-important ones."

Ellie snorts a laugh, climbing inside.

 

 

XV

 

The two islands are far away, their waters and aerial space inaccesible after the Kirby's stunt. And the three of them won't set foot on their land ever again. Everything is under control.

What could go wrong?

Ian hadn't taken into consideration stupid people. His mistake, because he does know that their stream is endless: unfortunately, idiocy breeds idiocy. There will always be someone who wants to lay a hand on the dinosaurs created by Hammond, and that someone will always manage to put their nose, scientists, vision in it, causing damage and unmentionable losses.

This time, the cost is even higher.

The introduction is averagely peaceful, as per script. Ellie calls announcing a governmental project of study in which Mark is involved; Alan and he are invited, if they can detach themselves from Santa Fe and Montana for a few days. Their consultancy would be much appreciated. Pay: a four-figures sum. Subject: to be disclosed on location.

Location: the Pentagon.

Ian skips over the prediction of unending papers to be signed and meets Alan at Washington, DC's terminal. Only after they have retrieved their luggage and he's seen the Spinosaurus' tooth serving as Alan's tag, he thinks of wondering why the heck they were both called.

"It's for some kind of scientific study, she said?"

Alan frowns. "I bet they want more details for the Costarican waters' security. What else could it be?"

Ian shoulders his black briefcase. "Something related to Mark's job?"

"International security, then."

" _National_ security, Alan. What has Costa Rica to do with it?"

"Well, how should I know?"

They exit the airport with the crowd. A typical black car is waiting for them, with the typical man in black next to it. They make their way in his direction.

"Ian", Alan prompts.

"I'm just saying than... I know how these agencies work, everything secret everything hushed everything invisible. But why couldn't Ellie give us at least a clue? Does she know what we're being hired for?"

"Are you saying–"

"That I don't like this."

And he likes it less with every passing minute. He'd rather hit the brakes the moment they enter the Pentagon, but Ellie is there to greet them, fresh and smiling.

"I just arrived myself. Mark's waiting for us inside."

It would be a good idea to turn on his heels when they access the restricted area, too: this time he's got a good reason. Nobody had permission to go through that door beside them and the assigned agents, and the video feeback is just as restricted, visible only to inside personnel; therefore, nobody saw what happened in there for the last seven hours.

The back of the door, which is armoured, bears deep slash marks.

"Mother of God" Alan murmurs. He traces a furrow with his fingers, sweat beading his temple. "They look like... bird talons."

"Worst pronouncement ever" Ian says, eyes fixed on the deep end of the hallway, where a few torn wires are spritzing sparks in the semi-darnkess.

He can't believe they're in this predicament again – in the core of the most secure military compound to boot. Ellie is staring at the scene with her mouth open.

"I don't want to know what happened here, guys" he adds. «I just want to know why nobody gave the alarm and to go away, _right now_."

"Mark is here, somewhere. Oh God, Mark... Mark!"

"Ellie, don't!"

"Stop stop stop! _Where are you going_?"

There is no stopping her. They follow at a run, slamming the door to the main hallway closed.

Which doesn't latch, as they will discover afterwards.

"Boy, do I hate being always right" Ian swears that night, barricaded in a secret storage room with two battered interns.

He's suddenly reminded of _Alien_. Ruin, horror and solitude in dark, infested corridors; sooner or later the monsters will be taken away from their planet and will colonize Earth, devouring mankind. At the moment, it's a possibility by no means remote. The three of them are being hunted by a deinonichus, freed in the chaos caused by two squawking pterodactyls which, according to the files, were captured in flight above California and taken here to be studied. It seems that miles of sea around Nublar and Sorna aren't enough for the dinosaurs.

The deinonichus looks a lot like a velociraptor. Too much, for Ian's tastes.

He hasn't heard from Alan and Ellie in a while. He's starting to be seriously worried.

"Compsognathus!" shrieks the girl.

The horde arrives like a swarming ants' nest.

"Go go go! Run!"

 

The interns and he are brought out of that hell the day after, and compelled to strict confidence even before they've crossed the evacuation doors. Alan and Ellie are sitting on the tailboard of a military ambulance, he with a splinted arm, she covered in blood. Ian limps up to them with the tenacity of a tyrannosaurus.

Ellie is crying.

Mark is stretched out behind them, white. He's dead.

 

 

XVI

 

And so it goes, so history repeats itself. Hammond disturbed the time-space continuum of their age, and it will never go back to what it was; especially for those who immersed themselves fully in the Jurassic disturbance, willing or unwilling.

Years pass. Ellie's children learn to call him uncle, to call Alan dad. They even get a sibling.

Ian is happy for them all: even in tragedy, a family was saved, a bond re-formed. He loves watching his children play with their 'cousins'. But he cannot help wondering if it will be possible to enjoy this era of peace.

He's wondering the same on the evening when, six years after Washington, he first hears of a new project: the Jurassic World.

 

"Someone has to prevent that park from opening" Alan says, grim.

"Tim and Lex's associations are working hard on it" Ian comments, distracted by Ruth's small ponies and red curls while she plays on his knee. "They'll make it."

"They won't."

"Why not?"

He asked it. He knew he shouldn't have, but he did.

"Because the government wants documented reports, signed by experts ready to attest its level of danger, before rejecting all authorizations to Masrani Corp."

Ian looks up. Charlie and Rosie appear for a second in the door's frame, running with paper wings on their arms and styrofoam claws. Ellie leans her lower back against the living room's chest of drawers, staring at him.

After a beat Alan looks at him too, serious.

"No. Ohh, no. Don't even think about it."

"It's for a good cause, Ian."

"Are you crazy? Yes, yes, you're crazy." He shakes a hand, keeping little Ruth steady with the other. "This goes beyond every branch of chaos theory. It deviates into psychiatric territory. Let me understand, where would you be returning to?"

"Isla Nublar" Ellie says, pale but firm.

Ian blinks, smiles.

" _Nublar_? You'd be going back to Hammond-made hell to... document it? Disapprove it? Why does this thing sound so familiar to me?"

Alan smiles back with as much tired sarcasm. "Because you already did it."

"Exactly. _And I won't be repeating_."

 

 

XVII

 

It ends a bit like it started: Ian, Ellie and Alan sitting in a helicopter, clothes torn, knees bumping and images of reptiles in their eyes.

They've just given sworn testimony on the events, right after surviving – the last experience linked to InGen, god willing. History, instinct and chaos theory say that it probably won't be... but, considering the state of things, Ian could even reconcile himself to the idea.

You come at a point in life when you just accept your destiny. Fate has seen fit to reroute the layout of his existence toward some sort of multiverse made of cohexisting realities: one modern, the other placed 65 million years ago. It's tragic, but by now dinosaurs are part of his individuality.

And moreover, he would not face the next storm alone.

The true difference from their first meeting, in fact, is the profound understanding that binds Ellie, Alan and him together. That morning of 1992 they were strangers separated by trade, education and a kind of mutual professional scorn. Going back to the savage garden, re-acquainting oneself with the law of the jungle where one ins't at the top of the feeding chain anymore has the funny effect of levelling all personal minutiae, reducing men to survival and instinct.

Well. Ian can say he's passed the test. Four times.

Still leading on Ellie by one point.

He can say, with some basis, that he's ready to face whatever life throws at him.

He looks at them and smiles, half-smug, half-happy. The sense of safety he feels when he's with them is irrational, considering they look like hell, one bearing raptor scratches, the other dylophosaurus' spit on her jacket; but not so much. They're all survivors, after all. Survivors and friends. Ian feels like some kind of lucky-clover, of horse-shoe, of rabbit leg.

He thinks of Kelly, safe in Sarah's house.

"So" he says, slapping his thighs. "Who's up for a T-Bone steak chez moi?"

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> I'll probably be back with minor editing and such.


End file.
